SEC Media Days Storylines: How much will Greg Sankey ham it up?
Southeastern Conference Media Days begin in Atlanta one week from today. Steve Sarkisian and several 2025 Texas Longhorns players will be in Downtown Atlanta on Tuesday, July 15 for their turn with the media ahead of Texas’ second season in the SEC.
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IT will have every burnt orange aspect covered, as well as important things said and heard relating to the conference as a whole.
Up first? SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.
Back at SEC Spring Meetings just after Memorial Day, IT wrote the following about Sankey:
Sankey, whether in Destin, in Birmingham, or in boardrooms, is stubborn in maintaining the best interests of the SEC. That’s the way his constituents want it, and that’s what he’s good at presenting.
That was said when the main topic in the college football world was regarding the future format of the College Football Playoff. Remember, the SEC didn’t want to commit to a nine-game league schedule because it wanted the eight vs. nine decision to be made with knowledge of the future CFP format.
Sankey is going to get questions about the CFP. Sankey is going to get questions about eight games vs. nine games. Sankey is going to get questions about how the league moves forward in the House era.
But Sankey’s answers? Expect for him to toot the league’s horn in just about everything he does.
That means things like celebrating one year of Texas and Oklahoma in the league. That means celebrating national championships in women’s gymnastics, men’s swimming and diving, men’s basketball, women’s tennis, women’s outdoor track, softball, and baseball.
But it also means making sure messaging that was initiated at Spring Meetings is again sung loud and clear for all to hear.
And that message is going to focus on how difficult it is to play in the SEC.
Sankey and the conference distributed a packet to gathered media at the end of Spring Meetings they knew would get blasted out into the college football news ecosystem. They knew some would agree with what it said. They knew some would find fault in what it relayed. They knew other conferences would be upset with the data included, but Sankey and company work for the SEC and not other conferences.
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Distributed as coaches, media, and administrators were leaving Destin, it was meant to be the final word, for a while, on the topic until Media Days ramped up.
It’d be shocking if Sankey didn’t continue to explain how good the SEC is to the outside world. And he’ll have quite the platform for it. Though the Big 12 has their media days first in Frisco starting tomorrow, and though that allows for the big names in sports media to attend, there’s something to be said about the monolith that is the SEC talking about the SEC on the SEC Network with sports media from around the country in Atlanta. Of course, the Big 10 and ACC will have their chance to respond… but not until the following week.
SEC Media Days is an intriguing time on the college football calendar. It’s a way to learn about the hopes for the upcoming season for all 16 members. It’s a way to learn about star players. It’s a way to learn about up-and-coming athletes.
It’s also a way for the league to spread as much good news and data about itself as possible. Expect to see that from Sankey and company starting next Monday.
